Racial-Ethnic Differences in Sexual Risk Behaviors: The Role of Substance Use

Abstract

This research investigates the impact adolescent substance use has on adult sexual risk behaviors within racial-ethnic groups. Previous research has found support for this relationship, but often relies on concurrent measures of substance use and sexual risk behavior meaning that the causal direction of this relationship may be unclear. The data for this study come from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), a nationally representative survey that followed respondents from adolescence in 1994 to adulthood in 2008. Results show that substance use correlates with sexual risk behavior, but the impact varies by race-ethnicity.

Age, sex, and other demographic trends in sexual behavior in the United States: Initial findings of the sexual behaviors, internet use, and psychological adjustment survey

“…We did detect a significant difference for earlier ages of initiation for oral and vaginal sex for White and Black participants relative to Asian participants, and that Black participants reported more lifetime vaginal sex partners than White participants. Although the effects were small (Cohen's d < .30), we did observe a trend for Black participants to report a higher frequency, more partners, and an earlier age of initiation for oral and vaginal sex than White and Asian participants as reported in prior studies [14,15,[21][22][23]. The lack of significant differences could be due to a different design than most prior studies of general sexual behavior (i.e., our use of internet-based recruitment and survey methods assessing oral, vaginal, and anal sex separately).…”

“…7. Black participants would report an earlier age of initiation and more sexual partners than White and Asian participants [14,15,[21][22][23].…”

Integrating Individual and Contextual Factors to Explain Disparities in HIV/STI Among Heterosexual African American Youth: A Contemporary Literature Review and Social Ecological Model

“…However, alcohol and marijuana, the most commonly-used substances among African American adolescents and young adults (Miech, Johnston, O'Malley, Bachman, & Schulenberg, 2016), are the substances most often studied among this population, both showing consistent relationships with HIV/STI risk (e.g., Keen, Blanden, & Rehmani, 2016;Sales, Monahan, et al, 2014;Swartzendruber, Sales, Brown, DiClemente, & Rose, 2014;. Alcohol use in particular should elicit attention among heterosexual African American youth, as there is some evidence to suggest that any alcohol use poses risk for infection and behavioral outcomes among African American youth whereas only high levels of use pose risk among White youth (Hipwell, Stepp, Chung, Durand, & Keenan, 2012;Khan, Berger, Wells, & Cleland, 2012;Miller & Broman, 2016;Sales, Brown, Vissman, & DiClemente, 2012;Seth, Wingood, DiClemente, & Robinson, 2011).…”

Primary and secondary supportive partnerships among HIV-positive and HIV-negative middle-aged and older gay men

“…Intersecting social stigmas attached to the racial and sexual identities of black middle-aged and older gay men may also help to explain their lower prevalence of supportive relationships found in this study. Black gay men face pressure to conform to potentially conflicting roles between the expectations of their family and black community in which heteronormativity is expected [ 23 , 36 , 37 , 39 ] and the expectations of the LGBT community, which holds its own array of racially specific behavioral stigmas/expectations “such as the ‘aggressive black top’ and the ‘submissive Asian bottom’” [ 36 ]. Decades ago, Icard suggested a multivariate framework for assessing the psychosocial well-being of gay black men, arguing that due to cultural norms, many black men have had to prioritize or even compartmentalize their identities as black men and gay men in order to reduce the possibility of ostracization from either community [ 39 ].…”